On October 11, President Maia Sandu unveiled Moldova’s new National Security Strategy, an inter-agency product of the country’s Supreme Security Council and other relevant government institutions. The document assesses Russia’s agenda in the region as posing direct threats to Moldova’s aspirations to join the European... MORE

As Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine drags on, Ukraine is stepping up its efforts to attract the non-Russian peoples of Russia to its side. Kyiv is working from the long-standing conviction that these nations are natural allies in resisting Russian imperialism. Ukraine’s current... MORE

The end of September and early October brought several important developments concerning the Wagner Group and its future. On September 27, a press officer for the Eastern Group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), Illia Yevlash, confirmed the presence of Wagner mercenaries in the... MORE

The violence in the Middle East has overshadowed the rise of a potentially explosive hot spot in the South Caucasus following Azerbaijan’s re-assertion of control over the Karabakh region. That is the Zangezur Corridor, a narrow strip of land inside Armenia (known as the Syunik... MORE

The number of registered “Cossacks” involved in the “Special Military Operation” (SVO) in Eastern Ukraine has risen to 25,000, taking into account rotations and leaves. This number was mentioned in announcements at the All-Russian Forum “Cossacks in the North Caucasus: Current Stage and Image of... MORE

Many Russians, including senior members of the Vladimir Putin regime, fear that the influx of Muslim migrant workers from Central Asia could jeopardize the core of Russian culture and the Russian Federation itself. These migrants make up over 80 percent of the more than ten... MORE

At the end of September 2023, a draft of the Russian federal budget for 2024 and the 2025–26 planning period was introduced to the State Duma. Fiscal revenues for 2024 are planned to be 35.07 trillion rubles ($418.5 billion, according to the average exchange rate... MORE

*Read Part Four. Four months in, the Ukrainian counteroffensive has been slowly, but steadily advancing along the Bakhmut, Melitopol, and Berdyansk salients. Ukrainian forces have effectively retaken the initiative at sea with innovative drone strikes on Russian positions in and around Crimea (Euromaidan Press, October... MORE

After the mass protests of January 2022, Kazakhstan has sought to distinguish itself from the economic and foreign policy failures of the former Nursultan Nazarbayev administration. In September 2023, Kazakhstani President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev shared his vision to ameliorate Kazakhstan’s “dependence on raw materials, low labor productivity,... MORE

In September 2023, all European Union member states bordering Russia introduced an entry ban on cars sporting Russian license plates. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were the first to implement the policy, albeit with Vilnius leaving open an exception for transit from the Russian exclave Kaliningrad... MORE